The Giant Within
by Kaji
Summary: This isnt going to be as boring as it sounds. please review. (i never get reviews)


1 The Giant Within  
  
  
  
He stared longingly at the photo of him and his father one last time before putting it away. It was almost time for his next class, and he couldn't bear to be caught in this state of emotional open-ness. Not that he was cold. He just didn't want to deal with the concern and pity of, say, Harry. He loved Harry very much, as much as he would if he was his own son. If he knew what it felt like to have a son.  
  
Hagrid sighed in remorse at the thought of Madame Maxime. She had probably been his only chance at a relationship that he would ever have, and he blew it by accusing her of being half-giant. The last time he had seen her was two years ago, when the Triwizard Tournament was brought back from almost a century. It had been held at Hogwarts, and two other wizarding schools had also competed: Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. It was then that Hagrid had met her, the only other half-giant he had ever seen in his life. And she had denied it. Frankly, she broke his heart, although he hadn't ever said that to anyone before. Really, he was lonely. He had friends, great friends, but he didn't have family. Hagrid's mom was off somewhere in the mountains, or maybe she was dead. He didn't know. His dad was dead. He had no siblings.  
  
A silent tear rolled down Hagrid's rough, unshaven face. He quickly flicked it away, and opened the door to his hut. As he walked outside, he saw his class of second years approaching his hut warily. Hagrid smiled ruefully, knowing that he must look quite frightening. This particular group had never met him personally, none of the second years had. He usually brought up the first years to the castle by boat, but he had had pneumonia and was unable to attend to that particular set of responsibilities. So because of that, the only times the former-first years had seen him was when everyone was eating in the main hall.  
  
The students reached Hagrid shortly. This was the first Care of Magical Creatures this year, and he had a good lesson planned.  
  
Hagrid clapped his hands and rubbed them together in anticipation of the upcoming lesson. He waved the students over.  
  
"Okay, everyone here? Good. Follow me." Hagrid led the children over to the garden, where lots of little wire cages held what looked like bright blue bugs.  
  
"Everyone grab a cage. Each cage holds a Billywig. These, as yeh can see, are insects. They are common in Africa, and I put in an order for these as soon as I heard about 'em. As yeh may have noticed, this creature's wings are on top o' its' head. The Billywig spins in order to fly. The sting on its' end isn't deadly," he added as he saw some of the students eying them cautiously. "Now, each o' yeh is goin' to have to take care o' these creatures for two weeks. Whichever is in the best health at the end o' the time will get a prize." At this, the children looked at each other and grinned. "Yeh can take 'em out o' they're cages, if yeh want. Just don' let 'em fly away!"  
  
Some of the kids, Hagrid noticed, left them to be. The others, however, took them out carefully and held them gently between their hands.  
  
"Yeh are goin' teh have the do some research on these lil' buggers. Yeh are all expected the know what these lil' guys eat, their sleepin' habits, an' so on by next class."  
  
Hagrid saw nods, and the occasional eye-roll at the expectation of homework.  
  
"OW!"  
  
Hagrid looked up and saw a pretty brown-haired girl, Mycynzy, grimace and suck on her finger. Then she grinned and giggled.  
  
"Wow, this lesson is so cool." She giggled again. "I can't wait to eat. What's for breakfast?"  
  
All the students regarded her strange behavior with puzzled glances. Hagrid just smiled faintly. The students gasped as they realized that Mycynzy was floating almost a foot off the ground.  
  
"That would be the side effects o' the sting o' the Billywig. Yeh feel temporary giddiness an' yeh may float up off the ground for a lil' while. Nothin' teh worry 'bout, though. It wears off in a while." Hagrid knew that these words were in vain, because now all of the kids saw how much Mycynzy was having, that now they all wanted to get stung. Pretty soon, the air was filled with happy, floating children. Hagrid sighed.  
  
"Okay everyone, don' get too carried away wit the stings, now. Too many times might kill 'em." He sighed once more as the bell rang as a signal of the ending lesson.  
  
Good, lunch, he thought, and as the students departed for their lunch, Hagrid slid back into his little hut.  
  
* * *  
  
Strange news had been reaching Hagrid over the past few weeks. It seems that a giant, at least one, has been on he loose. There have been Muggle sightings, and several people have been injured, three of which were Muggles attending a wedding. The whole thing has been a huge issue for the M.O.M.. The Ministry workers have had their hands full, what with erasing the minds of the Muggles who saw the giant and then having to try and track it down. You may not think that giants would be very hard to track, but they are. They have camouflage so good, that even standing in the middle of a busy street, only one or two people would notice it was there. Of course, this was only the case if the giant stood perfectly still. When moving, everyone saw it. It was nearly impossible not to.  
  
Hagrid knew that this wasn't good, but he couldn't help but feel a little excited. The giant was supposed to be headed towards where Hogwarts lay, and Hagrid couldn't wait to catch a glimpse of it. After all, he was a descendant of the giants. But, no, he wasn't like them at all. Except that he was much larger than a regular human, and that he had an uncanny obsession with rare and dangerous magical beasts, he wasn't any different from anyone else. Or at least he didn't think so. It didn't matter anyway.  
  
Hagrid stopped thinking about this when he remembered that Harry was supposed to come and have a cup of tea with him in a few minutes. He went inside and busied himself with the tea and rock cakes until he heard a knock at the front door.  
  
"Come in!" he hollered. Harry walked in.  
  
"Hullo, Hagrid."  
  
"Yeh didn' bring any o' yeh friends?"  
  
"No, Hagrid. I actually wanted to talk to you alone." Harry looked sort of nervous, so Hagrid quickly poured him a cup of tea and offered him a cake. He sat down and gestured for Harry to continue.  
  
"Now, I'm sure you've been reading the Daily Prophet, so you probably know all about the giant on the loose. Hagrid, don't do anything stupid."  
  
Hagrid was slightly hurt. "What do yeh mean? What did yeh think I would do?" he asked.  
  
""Go looking for the giant, or trying to get closer to it, maybe befriend it."  
  
"Oh." Now Hagrid could see where Harry was coming from. He had hit it right on the mark. Like he was going to admit it, though. "Rubbish. Why would I go an' do a thing like that?"  
  
"You're half-giant. It's in your blood. I just thought that maybe you wanted to see someone that may be one distant relative of yours. But giants are nothing like you, Hagrid. You're much better than them, and safer too. They're violent, (and not to mention huge) greedy beasts with not much brain and even less heart. Your dad must have been one hell of a guy. Even having a giant for a wife, you turned out to be one of the best people I know."  
  
Just thinking about his father made his heart swell up. He blinked really hard a couple of times to keep the tears at bay from Harry's words, and then replied, "Well, Harry, I don' know what teh say. I give yeh my word that I won' even bother with this whole giant thing. Yeh're right, o' course, but I come to expect that from you. So why didn' Ron or Hermione come? They don' wanna see me?"  
  
"No, of course they do Hagrid, they were going to help out Fred and George with their plan to set up Ginny with Seamus. I specifically asked not to be a part of it."  
  
"Oh. That's too bad really, Harry. I had always imagined Ginny wit' yeh. Hmm." Hagrid smiled at Harry and went to put on some more tea.  
  
This story isn't done yet, but Kori wanted me to put up part of it, so here it is. Review what I have done so far, and I'll keep writing and hopefully I'll put up another part of it soon. 


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